KUALA LUMPUR, July 24- Local paintings have become very popular among art collectors in Singapore who are willing to pay millions of ringgit for a uniquely aesthetic piece, Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz said Tuesday.
He said this was one of the reasons that the Ministry could not preserve them as national treasures.
“The National Visual Arts Gallery has a small allocation for purchasing works of such high quality so they cannot afford it,” he said after visiting the National Visual Arts Development Board and breaking fast at the gallery here.
He promised to raise a motion for increasing the allocation to enable purchases of larger numbers of impressive local pieces to be showcased for the public.
Meanwhile, the Gallery director-general Haned Masjak said there were only about 4,000 pieces in their collection despite being in operation for nearly 55 years, as they were limited to pieces costing less than half a million ringgit.
